Brain drains while the heart stays: Is leaving Turkey an option?

By Binnaz Saktanber, Turkish blogger and political scientist, Special to CNN

Updated 1328 GMT (2128 HKT) March 28, 2014

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds.

Photos:Turkish voices

Turkish voices – Binnaz Saktanber says many young Turkish professionals feel trapped between their brains, which tell them to leave the country, and their hearts, which tell them to stay. She asked her friends and peers about their own feelings. Flip through this gallery to see what they had to say.

Hide Caption

1 of 10

Photos:Turkish voices

Turkish voices – Neslihan Erdogan, 36, is a real estate executive who returned to Turkey in 2010 after ten years in the U.S. She said: "I came to Turkey because I got fooled by the phony atmosphere of stability AKP has created. I was so happy I was here for the Gezi protests but now I go back and forth between feeling hope and despair. When I heard that the officials who got arrested for corruption got released recently, that was enough to decide to go back to the U.S."

Hide Caption

2 of 10

Photos:Turkish voices

Turkish voices – Demet Gulcicek, 26 is a master student in sociology, who plans to go abroad for her PhD. She wants to come back after finishing her studies and was inspired by the Occupy Gezi movement in which she was active. "I want to be part of the resistance although I am not happy living in such political turmoil."

Hide Caption

3 of 10

Photos:Turkish voices

Turkish voices – The Gezi protests she speaks about took place in Istanbul last summer, after demonstrators took over a park in the city center, protesting against the destruction of trees near Taksim Square. The protests escalated and for weeks, Istanbul was paralyzed by clashes between the demonstrators and police as clouds of tear gas swirled through the city.

Hide Caption

4 of 10

Photos:Turkish voices

Turkish voices – "I think anybody who can afford even a plane ticket or a place to stay, would go. And migrants who once wanted to go back to Turkey would at least delay their return. Nobody wants to live under a government who oppresses and discriminates against its people," says Elif Key, 42, a journalist who moved to the U.S. a year ago.

Hide Caption

5 of 10

Photos:Turkish voices

Turkish voices – The government's response to the Gezi protests was widely viewed as excessive. The mass demonstrations then transformed into protests against what the opposition called "Erdogan's authoritarian agenda."

Hide Caption

6 of 10

Photos:Turkish voices

Turkish voices – In the latest backlash against the opposition, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to "eradicate" Twitter, ordering the social media site to be taken down. His move sparked widespread protests.

Hide Caption

7 of 10

Photos:Turkish voices

Turkish voices – Selvi Akyildiz, 27, was born to a Turkish father and an English mother and grew up in Oxford. During the Gezi protests she quit her job and moved back to Turkey in July. "It seems strange to leave a decent life in London, but I'd much rather be here witnessing what is going on," she said. "I will vote for the first time ever in Turkey. I'm apprehensive about the local elections, however I want to contribute. The time is now and I am here to stay."

Hide Caption

8 of 10

Photos:Turkish voices

Turkish voices – Şenay Ataselim, 40, is the Chief Operating Officer of Turkish Philanthropy Fund. She moved to U.S. to go to graduate school with the intention of coming back. She has changed her mind since."I thought getting a graduate degree from US was necessary for a decent job in Turkey, where I planned to live. Now I do not want to go back. I do not want to raise my child in such a negative atmosphere." (File photo)

Hide Caption

9 of 10

Photos:Turkish voices

Turkish voices – Murat Yılmaz, 40, PR professional, moved to New York in 1999 with a plan to come back. He too changed his mind. "What educated skilled individual would want to live in a dictatorship? Anybody who has an opportunity to flee would do so." (File photo)

Hide Caption

10 of 10

Story highlights

Binnaz Saktanber recently moved back to Turkey after spending a decade abroad

She says she felt happy to be in Turkey during last summer's protests, hopeful for future

Recently, she began to lose hope and started thinking about leaving again, she writes

I moved from Turkey to New York right after college and stayed for 10 years. I instantly felt I belonged. No matter how small my apartment was, how little money I had or how bad the streets smelled, I was happy.

I went to graduate school, worked, had the time of my life and became an adult. Although I missed my family, friends and having a glass of Raki looking at the Bosphorus, I never wanted to go back.

Unfortunately, there was one big hurdle in my New York forever plan: the scholarship that got me to U.S. had a strict rule of returning home for two years after graduating. That rule was to prevent brain drain: the departure of educated or professional people from one country for another, for better living conditions.

Binnaz Saktanber

More than that, my significant other wanted to go back. "No matter what" he said, "I want to build our lives in Turkey." So we did -- I am writing this from Istanbul, where I have lived for almost two years now.

The "no matter what" part he was referring to was all the reasons why people leave in the first place: lack of opportunities, political and economic instability, and oppression.

JUST WATCHED

Turkey blocks YouTube access

MUST WATCH

Turkey blocks YouTube access04:15

Pundits were quick to praise Turkey as a model country: a secular Muslim democracy with a liberal market. Friends were going back and the ones who stayed in New York were asking if they should follow whenever we got together.

JUST WATCHED

Diplomacy & Tech: Turkey Bans Twitter

MUST WATCH

Diplomacy & Tech: Turkey Bans Twitter 08:54

I did not see such a model country when I moved back. And things deteriorated over the last two years.

I saw Erdogan's unbearable authoritarianism, his denigrating and polarizing stance, a discriminatory attitude towards anyone who is not a Sunni Muslim or an ethnic Turk and no respect to anyone who is not 100% pro his AKP party.

Regulation against hate crimes did not recognize ethnicity or sexual orientation as separate categories. Neither were Alevis listed as a distinct faith community or Kurds -- the largest ethnic minority in Turkey, recognized as a separate ethnicity.

As for my beautiful Istanbul, the city I dreamed of whenever I missed home, I saw an utter lack of sustainable urban development.

Projects like the world's largest airport, a canal that would split the city's European side, a third bridge and the now infamous Ottoman-era barracks in lieu of Taksim Square were planned without any consideration for the ecological system or the fabric of the city.

Large scale real estate projects gentrified neighborhoods and pushed the poor out of the city. It was no surprise then that Istanbul ranked 117th among 221 cities in the EU's urban livability index.

The economy was not as good as it looked either: according to the OECD's 2014 statistics, Turkey has the third highest level of income inequality in the OECD area. One in every five Turks is poor. I started asking myself: shall I go back, can I really live here?

JUST WATCHED

Calls for Turkish PM to flee or resign

MUST WATCH

Bank scene of Turkish protest – Thousands of demonstrators chanted "help, there are thieves" during the protest in front of a branch of the state-owned Halkbank.

Hide Caption

1 of 3

Photos:Protest in front of Turkish bank

Bank scene of Turkish protest – An ATM machine was targeted during the protest.

Hide Caption

2 of 3

Photos:Protest in front of Turkish bank

Bank scene of Turkish protest – Some activists demonstrated with shoe boxes in front of the bank.

Hide Caption

3 of 3

Then the Gezi protests happened. A cloud of hope surrounded all of us skeptics despite the horrendous police violence we had witnessed.

I felt alive and happy to be in Turkey, hopeful for future. Protesting in the streets as long as we did, I thought "I could not have lived with myself if I was in U.S. at this time."

When the police cracked down the protests, the resistance reconstituted itself as political opposition in different shapes and forms.

But the physical and political violence did not stop. Erdogan became more despotic as the recent corruption scandal started threatening his power; he went as far as blocking Twitter and YouTube.

A feeling of depression replaced hope. So I started thinking again: shall I leave?

For every person who wants and is able to go abroad, there is another who would never dream of leaving his beloved homeland or one that is not fortunate enough to have the opportunity to leave even if he wanted to.

It is hard to be trapped between your brain and your heart. As for me, I think I will stay for now. And even if my brain drains to the farthest corner of the world, I know my heart will carry my country with me, wherever I go.